Space elevator.

[Michael Kieth Adams]

I know that we cannot do it now for want of sufficiently strong materials,  but what if we split the lift into stages.  Use helium to support a small  platform and connect it to another higher platform, using a small orbiting satellite that could move into position to link up with the highest one from space.   Air current problems could be dealt with  by reeling everything in when needed and letting  them back out again when it is safe.  I know that the problems are enormous but so are the benefits.  Rockets are expensive and dangerous, elevators are relatively safe and should be quite a bit cheaper.  Just a thought.  Mike.

 

[Steve Ward]

What stops the wind blowing the helium platform away  ? ... living in the realms of fantasy , they are bound for the drawer full of silly ideas alongside terra-forming planets and warp drives ... 😆

[Michael Kieth Adams]

Anchor  ropes, stabilizing jets, I don’t know all the answers.  Wind may be the main reason to shut everything down.  We are not far from cables strong enough to reach low orbit, but we can certainly reach a few thousand feet, okay a few tens of thousands of feet.  Startreck is fantasy but we all use communicators that can reach around the planet.  There is a man made object leaving our solar system and sending us images of things no one had imagined.  Our robots orbit and walk on Mars.  We are looking for earthlikeplanets.   We cannot know what is possible and what is not.  Heart transplants were a silly notion not that long ago.   Serious proposals for ultra fast transport systems don’t miss much being warp drives.   Because I don’t know all the answers does not mean that there are none.  Just because you cannot imagine a solution cannot mean that no one can.   I won’t say  have faith, I will say open your eyes.  The world I was born into in 1950 was a very different place than the world we live in today.  We are a very long way from being done.  I don’t believe we could terraform Mars in a year or ten, or a thousand, but if we worked at it for ten thousand years what might we accomplish?  I don’t mean to belittle your opinion.  Many share it.   Occasionally everyone should be a mad hatter and find impossible things to believe in.  Mike

[Astronomist]

15 hours ago, Steve Ward said:

warp drives ... 😆

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

Unlikely and a bit far-fetched i know, but never say never!

There's also some research to suggest that carbon nanotubes could be strong enough to construct a space elevator (ultimate tensile strength 63GPa!), again some way to go on that as CNTs are far from becoming a mainstream construction material.

Edited August 18 by Astronomist

[CheshireChris]

Arthur C Clarke nailed it again in 'The Fountains of Paradise' - that was 1979.

Chris

 

[apaulo]

Everything is impossible , until its done. 

[TiffsAndAstro]

1 hour ago, apaulo said:

Everything is impossible , until its done. 

Only eating one's own head is impossible 

[apaulo]

have you tried it hahah

[Xilman]

2 hours ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

Only eating one's own head is impossible 

I defy you to make a four-sided triangle.

[TiffsAndAstro]

15 minutes ago, Xilman said:

I defy you to make a four-sided triangle.

I can make a triangle whose internal angles total more than 180 degrees so should be np

[TiffsAndAstro]

1 hour ago, apaulo said:

have you tried it hahah

Anthony Hopkins feeding  ray liotta his own brain seems to be the closest modern science has gotten.

[saac]

25 minutes ago, Xilman said:

I defy you to make a four-sided triangle.

The modern way is just to change the definition of a triangle  

Jim

[saac]

The easy bit is "imagine"  so if that is the game let's bypass space elevators altogether and go straight to teleportation or portable worm holes. That saves the need to spoil more green belt building space ports for the elevators  

The hard bit is the engineering. That's why engineers do it and not scientists!

Jim

Edited August 18 by saac

[apaulo]

portable  holes , easy peesy , jcb moves worm holes , fox holes rabbit holes no probs. id say thats portable. 

[Michael Kieth Adams]

As for the triangle, possibly add dimensions?  Though that might actually be changing definitions, though every one of us does that every time we look at anything.  Science should be exciting and fun otherwise why?  Rockets are expensive and dangerous and cannot be our forever way to space.  Throwing stuff works but is not good for one’s health.  Wormholes would be great but we are farther from them than from elevators or so I think.   The problems are always great.  They always will be.  What fun to overcome them!  Everything changes and for a few brief years we get to watch!  What fun!

 

[TiffsAndAstro]

6 hours ago, saac said:

The modern way is just to change the definition of a triangle  

Jim

Actually I was refering to a 2d triangle drawn on a sphere

A 4 sided 4 dimensional pyramid portrayed in 3 dimensions might qualify 

[TiffsAndAstro]

9 minutes ago, Michael Kieth Adams said:

As for the triangle, possibly add dimensions?  Though that might actually be changing definitions, though every one of us does that every time we look at anything.  Science should be exciting and fun otherwise why?  Rockets are expensive and dangerous and cannot be our forever way to space.  Throwing stuff works but is not good for one’s health.  Wormholes would be great but we are farther from them than from elevators or so I think.   The problems are always great.  They always will be.  What fun to overcome them!  Everything changes and for a few brief years we get to watch!  What fun!

 

To be fair I think it is changing definitions, but I made same mistake

[saac]

2 hours ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

Actually I was refering to a 2d triangle drawn on a sphere

A 4 sided 4 dimensional pyramid portrayed in 3 dimensions might qualify 

I saw that, the internal angles of which can exceed 180 degrees. I was reflecting the modern trend to change the name of things to suit.  If it gets difficult just change the name  

Jim

[saac]

2 hours ago, Michael Kieth Adams said:

  Science should be exciting and fun otherwise why?  

It should, and it is, but it also has to be grounded otherwise it becomes something else more akin to imagination and storytelling. Not that there's anything wrong with either of those.

Jim

[TiffsAndAstro]

1 hour ago, saac said:

I saw that, the internal angles of which can exceed 180 degrees. I was reflecting the modern trend to change the name of things to suit.  If it gets difficult just change the name  

Jim

Which is what I did do but hopefully with a different motivation

[Albir phil]

We humans seem to achieve anything given enough time and money,it not that long going to the moon was a fantasy. When I was 12 in the early 60s I wrote a school essay about a plane that could travel around the world in 2hours,the teacher read it then said what a load of rubbish tore it up and bined it. Very encouraging chap, I say no more😂

[Michael Kieth Adams]

Americans consider cost a vital ingredient in everything.  Our Manhattan project cost fortunes.  The Japanese had two or three programs at a fraction of the cost and there are some who believe they achieved an explosion  before the end of the war.  My point is that cost is not always the vital step we believe it to be.  
 

American schools do not always favor imagination and creativity.  My science students were angered that I wouldn’t give hundreds on lab score.  I told them that a perfect paper would deliver itself to my desk.  In ten years of teaching I had one class that took that as a challenge and figured out how to deliver a paper to my desk.  I weep that there was only one class that ever believed they could do anything.  All children should believe that.

 

[Earthserpent]

Not to mention the issue of space junk obliterating any stuctures

[TiffsAndAstro]

Just now, Earthserpent said:

Not to mention the issue of space junk obliterating any stuctures

apparantly cables can be "easily" moved or shifted to avoid stuff. though with the expected cascade effect i find that hard to believe.

still never understoood why "Die Hard 8: Die harder in Space on a Beanstalk" has never been made